Grieving Is A Necessary Skill For Living

The one skill you need for challenging times:

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To live is to grieve. 

It is the end of a historic year, and the statistics are grim. A Pew finding states that 4 in 10 Americans know someone who was hospitalized or has died from COVID-19. If you are Black, Indigenous, or Latinx, you are impacted 140-170% more by the deaths and losses than your White peers.

In challenging times, we are forced to adapt to new circumstances. One of the most important skills we must learn as human beings is the ability to grieve. Death is a universal experience, and the grief that accompanies loss is unavoidable.

As someone who has experienced many cultures, I've observed that American culture falters when it comes to supporting those of us who suffer from loss. The American emphasis on productivity and efficiency makes little room or allowance for those who don't feel able to participate in business-as-usual. This unwillingness to face loss as a culture could apply to the passing of a beloved, but it can also mean symbolic loss. We resist losing our way of life, our privileges, our viewpoints, our homes, and even the bodily changes that come with aging.

While it's human and perfectly normal to protest against accepting loss, this resistance prevents us from understanding how life works. Life is an ever-evolving process of change. The irony is that when we do accept that we are susceptible to death and loss, we become more aware and appreciative of the people who are currently gracing our lives. That wisdom and acceptance comes through the process of grieving. Here are some steps to accept a seemingly unacceptable situation:

Step#1: Cultivate the willingness to not know the "Why" of things.
Some things don't make sense and bad things do happen to good people.

Step#2: Be gentle with yourself.

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Understand that as you grieve, you will feel a lot of feelings. You might be angry, sad, dispirited, or lose your faith in God and humanity. You might feel guilty. This is all normal, and also know that all emotions are temporary. Don't expect yourself to "be a soldier" or to carry on as normal. I liken the grief process to an act of nature. Sometimes it comes out of the blue, and with tremendous force, but it will pass.

Step#3: Cry in community.

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As mentioned before, death and dying are universal experiences. Yet when Americans grieve, we tend to isolate or to feel isolated. I encourage you to seek communion with others. This might entail attending a memorial service, informally gathering with friends and family, or joining a grief group. Given that we are in the midst of a pandemic, we can modify these rituals. You might consider joining a Facebook grief group instead of attending an in-person event. Even if we gather with others virtually, we will still feel less alone. In community, we witness others do the very thing that we doubt we have the strength to do: accept the unacceptable.

Step#4: Find companionship in spiritual communities.
In more ancient times, priests and shamans were the go-betweens the living and the dead. In these times, these functions remain the same. You may find solace from rituals in Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and many other faiths and cultures. Rituals give expression to experiences that may have no words. Because rituals are crafted by other humans, you find evidence that others have gone through the very same pain that you're going through.

Step#5: Find solace in art and poetry.
Whether you've experienced loss from acts of nature, an illness, or natural death, others have gone before you and have left a trail of healing. Artists have left clues about how to navigate these difficult times. You honor and give meaning to their experience by being receptive to their message.

Step#6: Be in nature.

Photo by Mott Rodeheaver, Unsplash

If you spend time in nature, you will observe that trees release their leaves in the winter and grow new life in the spring. These wordless experiences remind you of the natural cycles of life. Spending time in nature deepens your connection with the process of death and life.

Lastly, I want to leave you with the words of someone who has had a near-death experience. Anita Moorjani discovered that dying was the most precious gift she had ever experienced. This is her message: